This invention relates to an apparatus for cooling, serving, and continuing to cool the contents of a carafe along with a convenient tray having a screen supporting shelf for holding the cooled container when it is not being handled.
It has been customary to immerse bottle containers of beverage in buckets of ice in order to keep them cold. Wine and champagne bottles are often employed with this ice bucket technique, but such a bucket is a relatively large container. Such bottle in ice buckets are usually served by waiters having towels wrapped around the bottle for preventing moisture from dripping onto the table or onto patrons. The ice bucket itself is so large as to be not suitable generally for resting on the dinner table itself to be used directly by the drinkers. Instead of placement on the dinner table, the ice bucket is usually placed on a waiter's side table.
Several other approaches have been provided for cooling beverages. For example, Warren et al in U.S. Pat. No. 2,048,041 show a method of packing cracked ice around an inverted drinking glass. After the ice has been packed around the inverted glass, a napkin pad with a saucer are placed over the mass of cracked ice to hold it in place, while it and the glass are turned upright. Cracked ice, since it has no structural integrity, must be arranged in a tapered mass which is larger at the bottom than the top. In this cracked ice arrangement the user is unable to pick up the glass and must drink the beverage through a drinking straw. The napkin pad is now underneath the mass of cracked ice and must remain there in an unattractive fashion.
Another approach is shown by Miller in U.S. Pat. No. 2,952,133 wherein there is a drinking glass pre-formed of solid ice. The ice may be colored or flavored or may contain small sprigs of leaves or bits of decorative fruit. The ice glass is pre-molded, and the user must hold an unattractive corrugated, double-walled paper cup with an absorbent liner which surrounds and contains the bottom half of this drinking glass made of ice. In addition to the problem of this awkward insulated paper cup, the melting ice will dilute and alter the flavor of the beverage contents.
Schmid in U.S. Pat. No. 1,635,438 utilizes a pre-formed ice cap which rests over the lid of a milk bottle. This ice cap keeps the bottle cool in its top portion while being delivered to the user and while resting on a porch. Not only does the melting ice drip down the side of the bottle onto the floor, but also the dripping water makes the bottle difficult to handle and slippery, and the user cannot grasp the bottle by its rim or neck portion when the ice cap is in place.